EFFECT OF 12 WEEKS SELECTED PLYOMETRIC TRAINING ON AGILITY, SPEED AND EXPLOSIVE POWER: THE CASE OF MALE SPORT SCIENCE STUDENTS OF AMBO UNIVERSITY; AMBO TOWN, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Plyometric training has been a very popular training technique used by many coaches and training experts to improve speed, explosive power output, agility, explosive reactivity and eccentric muscle control in diffirent kinds of sports. The study was conducted to find out the effect of selected plyometric training on physical fitness variables(speed, agility and explosive power) of Ambo University Sport Science male students. For this study 40 subjects were selected by simple random sampling technique out of 87 total study population. The subjects of the study were participated in a supervised plyometric training program for 3 days (Tuesday, thrusday and Friday) per week and for twelve consecutive weeks for 60-65 minute per session. The physical fitness skill variables selected for the study were: Speed, Agility, Explosive power and their tests were 30 metre shuttle run, Illinois agility test and vertical jump test respectively. Tests were taken three times before,while and after training sessions as pre test, during test and post test respectively. Data were analysed by using SPSS software version 20. Comparison of mean was done by paired T-test. The results obtained in this study indicated that there was significant improvement in selected variables due to the intervention of selected plyometric training. After 12 weeks of selected plyometric training intervention subjects’ agility (MD= 0.54), speed (MD= 0.55), and explosive power (MD= 2.75) were changed significantly (p < 0.05). This study proved that selected plyometric training was significantly important in improving the study variables in this manuscript.